I have a twelve year old daughter. Thank you. Her worldview is like that of any preteen which means that she is under the false impression that the experiences of her generation are completely original. Music, movies, fashion, personal tastes – the whole sphere of pop culture surrounding her demographic is like nothing no others have seen.

It is therefore my job to let her know that in reality her entire generation is ripping off my entire generation (who, incidentally, DID do everything original. Pipe down, mom.)

It always fun to deflate her arrogance with a “yeah, we did that first.” In her defense, the big reason that I can do this is because my generation is pretty much running the pop culture machine these days and if there’s one thing my generation excels at, it’s being narcissitic. So the people making movies, TV shows and music are regurgitating our childhoods to the people buying movies, TV shows and music. Because of this, the younger generation has no choice but to feed on our reheated leftovers. (A quick look at the multiplex confirms this, eh, B.A. and Perseus.)

Recently, she was throwing out what she deemed originals of her generation and I countered with the equivalent from mine. The following is a simple “Your generation’s THIS, was our generation’s THAT.” It’s a handy conversion chart for anyone who either needs to counter their own budding brainiac or for those who are a’scared of the new generation and think that you can’t relate. Come on now, we unleashed Boy George on the world, surely you can handle Adam Lambert.

Later 70s to early 90s would form the brunt of my ‘formative years,’ I suppose. Sure the Flintstones debuted in the 60s, but they were heavily syndicated so had a constant presence on daytime TV. I vacillated between using them or Scooby-Doo. Same thing with D&D, it didn’t end with the 70s and was still going strong in the 80s. That’s when some of the best manuals came out.

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